1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to medical imaging; and more particularly, to methods for computerized analysis of microscopic images of tissue sections.
2. Description of the Related Art
As before in radiology, now with the digitization of pathology, with more precise imaging of histology slides, new computer-assisted methods can be used that go far beyond the ability of human evaluation and interpretation of a glass slide using optical microscopy.
Sophisticated image analysis programs can be used to detect and characterize cells on partial or entire tissue sections and define and characterize different cell populations of a tissue specimen. Tissue specimens can then be examined and evaluated based on those cell populations in the context of other tissue specimens (study data set, target patient population data sets, etc.). Ultimately, a pathologist or tissue analyst can use the data from this approach in making assessments on endpoint determinants of the evaluation.
Similar concepts are used in flow cytometry, where multi-dimensional information is captured on every cell identified, and the dimensions are gated and compared to each other to define specific attributes of cell features. In contrast to flow cytometry, which relies on the physical capture and special instrumentation for the analysis of dissociated cells, image-based cell sorting does not rely on the physical capture and analysis of each cell as it is done digitally. Also, analysis of cells in their tissue section context has the advantage of maintaining the information of structural morphology of the tissue and context of the cells, while not requiring a special instrument.
There is a present and continuing need for systems and methods to build an image-based tissue analysis tool, which can be used to study multiple cell dimensions within a tissue to identify relationships between cells within and between tissue sections.